Early History
Both iwi history and archaeological evidence show Māori occupation in the Ōtākou / Otago region since the 12th century. Tradition tells us the atua Tū-te-rākiwhanoa discovered the wrecked celestial waka of Aoraki (Te Waka o Aoraki / South Island) and carved out places for people to live, including Muaupoko / Otago Peninsular. In another telling, the atua Kahukura was believed to have shaped the Otago coastline, eaten out the harbour and thrown up the earth either side thus forming the western shore and the peninsula. The harbour was shallow before Europeans arrived and provided abundant resources for hapū. Prior to and at the onset of European arrival there were numerous settlements about the coastal margins of the Otago Peninsula. Ōtākou was considered as having one of the highest concentrations of mana whenua in the south from 1769 to 1836 and is said to have had up to 2000 inhabitants in the early nineteenth century. The peninsula was once heavily forested with large totara, rimu, beech and matai and was populated by moa.
Taylor reported settlements at Pukekura, Te Rua a titiko, Te Rauone, Tahakopa, Omate, and Waipepeke on the Otago headlands. There were contemporaneous kaika at Puketuroto / Hoopers Inlet and Makahoe / Papanui Inlet. Makahoe was an important mahinka kai site and woodworking area. There was a significant nohoaka at Orau / Sandfly Bay which was a birding area in the 15th century. Black-backed gull eggs were collected from the cliff faces from the heads to Pikiwhara (Piki Whara) / Sandy Mount. Following the arrival of European sealers in the first decades of the 19th century saw Māori trade with them, cultivating and supplying potatoes, flax, pigs, and fresh water. Independently Māori traded with Sydney supplying dried and salted fish, port, and tītī. A successful whaling station was established at Te Umu Kurī / Wellers Rock by the Weller brothers, who married Ōtākou women and worked with local Māori.
The signing of the Otago Deed between representatives of the New Zealand Company and 25 chiefs occurred at Kōpūtai/Port Chalmers on 31 July 1844 and saw the sale of a half million acres for £2,400 ($661,324). This purchase included the Muaupoko / Otago Peninsula, with a reserve for Ngāi Tahu Māori established at Ōtākou at the northern end of the peninsula. During the 1879 Smith-Nairn Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Ngāi Tahu land claims, Ngāi Tahu kaumātua recorded Makahoe / Papanui Inlet as a salt-water channel where pātiki (flounders), makō (shark), tuere (blind eel/hagfish), kōkopu (native trout), tuaki (cockle), roroa (shellfish sp.), tio (oysters) and pāua were gathered. Since the 19th century the kaik at Ōtākou continues to be the main settlement in the area.
Upoko Edward Ellison’s submission to Otago Regional Council of 2011 details a significant number of named places on the coast and peninsula indicating a vast knowledge as well as historic and continual use of the wider harbour area. The awa Ōtākou / Otago Harbour was an ara tawhito for access to the north, south, and inland using waka hunua to tauraka waka to each mahika kai, and nohoaka.
Today, Kāi Tahu mana whenua is recognised over a large part of Te Wai Pounamu. Kāti Māmoe and Waitaha shared occupation are always acknowledged. The hapū Kai Te Pahi, Kāti Moki, and Kāti Taoka still maintain their presence and responsibility as kaitiaki in this region. A statutory acknowledgement exists for Te Tai o Arai Te Uru / Otago Coastal Marine Area of which Otago Harbour catchment / Te Riu o te Whāka o Otago, is a part. Ōtākou whanau continue to live at the kaik, and Ōtākou runaka hold multiple business interests in the area and wider Ōtepoti / Dunedin today.
European Settlement on the Otago Peninsula
Settlement on the peninsula saw sealers and whalers arrive in the early decade of the 19th century with a base established by the Weller Brothers at Wellers Rock in 1831. European settlement followed in the mid-19th century following the Kemp purchase of the Otago Block from Kāi Tahu in 1844 and the arrival of Scottish settlers in 1848. Dairy farming was the dominant style on the peninsula with the soils unsuitable for large scale cropping. There were creameries at Sandymount, Wickliffe Bay, Lower Portobello, Ōtākou, and Pukehiki and the first co-operative dairy factory was formed at John Mathieson’s Springfield farm in 1871. At its peak there were 30 dairy farms in the area, including a the kaik. Changing fortunes saw a move from dairying to sheep farming at the end of the 19th century. Other industries were trialled by these early settlers including flax milling, saw milling and lime burning – most were on a small scale enterprises and did not endure. No evidence has been found that indicates Māori were employed in the lime industry. By the late 1960s the small farms had been replaced by larger sheep grazing farms. The settler archaeological landscape is ‘strikingly intact and beautifully preserved, while the indigenous landscape underlying this is more difficult to encounter, but significant for the link to early occupation that it reveals.’ Signs can be seen in the remains of buildings, lime kilns, hundreds of archaeological sites and kilometres of drystone walls striating the landscape.
Lime burning
Lime burning was an early industry supplying the lime for mortar in brick and masonry construction and as a forerunner of Portland cement; the process has been understood and utilised for thousands of years. Lime burning was a foundation industry in the rise of New Zealand's pastoral and development economies. The need for this industry is supported entirely by the demand for burnt lime from which slaked lime was made for mortar; and the demand for agricultural lime, formed of burnt lime that was brittle and could be crushed to powder manually at a time when there were no (or very few) industrial machines that could grind limestone finely enough to be spread by hand. The burning of limestone results in the creation of Calcium Oxide, which when crushed and wet to a controlled dampness, Quicklime (Calcium Hydroxide) is produced. This is a long-life storable product and when mixed with more water and sand, mortar for brick and stone laying results.
Early lime kilns are still found in Otago and Canterbury, e.g., Kakahu Lime Kiln (List No. 315, Category 1), and Makareao Lime Works (Former) (List No. 4368, Category 1). Lime kilns declined in use after the discovery of good limestone and marl deposits led to the manufacture of Portland cement after 1884 and the advent of cement works. The earliest lime kilns in New Zealand were probably erected in Nelson in the early 1840s. The earliest in Otago were erected after 1849 at Kaikorai and Caversham, at Sandymount the lime burning industry began in the mid-1860s. Early European settlers that held the knowledge for the process of manufacturing lime through the burning of limestone, were drawn to this resource throughout the New Zealand colonial period. The area of Sandymount near Portobello on the Otago Peninsula was such an area, due to the abundance of premium quality limestone. The geological name for the limestone at Sandymount is the Waipuna Bay Formation, this unit being deposited in the mid-Miocene period. The band of limestone on the Otago Peninsula extends from Te Ahi Karoro / Seal Point across the Harbour to Dowling Bay. The band is approximately 800 metres wide and around 20-30 metres deep. Before a lime industry was established lime was procured by burning shells from the Lower Harbour with timber on the shore. Small kilns were constructed in Portobello, but not on a commercial scale. Several people were engaged in lime burning on the Peninsula although the scale of the work is difficult to determine.
The Lime Kilns at Sandymount
The kilns under consideration in this report were operating by the mid-late 1860s but the order in which they were constructed and who they were constructed by is unclear. The three stone-clad lime kilns at Sandymount near Portobello, are known historically as draw kilns, shaft kilns or pot kilns. These kiln types were designed with three compartments: the top section is the cylindrical charging bowl (or pot), where fist sized chunks of smashed limestone called ‘charge’ along with alternating layers of fuel was loaded through the opening in the top; the middle section held the ‘firebox’ or furnace(s), where fuel was added to burn the limestone, as well as regulating the airflow; the lowest section was the drawing eye where the lime was drawn from, along with waste such as ash, charcoal or failed lime (described as under or over baked).
The order in which these kilns were constructed is unclear. The top kiln was built on Walter Riddell’s property. Walter Riddell (1838-1920) and his wife Wilhelmina (Nee Glendinning) arrived on the Grasmere in 1862. They were the earliest European settler in the Sandymount area. Riddell kept a diary and recalls reaching their new home at Ivy Bank on Peggy’s Hill, Sandymount in 1864, ‘it took us ten days to carry our things through the bush (a mile [1.6 km]) from the end of the road’. A farmer and carpenter, Riddell like many settlers, spent time on his own land and that of his neighbours clearing bush, building houses and fences and planting edible crops. Riddell built the Pukehiki Church (List No. 7356). He was one of the founders of the Otago Peninsular Dairy Factory, and later a foreman at Larnach’s Castle (List No. 2190) where he built the hanging staircase. There is evidence in Riddell’s diary that he leased land to James McDonald in the years 1868 to 1870.
James McDonald (1840 - 1934), a journeyman mechanic from Scotland, arrived in Dunedin with his wife Isabella (nee Christie) in 1860 aboard the ship Pladda. McDonald was to become instrumental in the development of the cement industry in New Zealand. The development of McDonald’s lime burning operation at Sandymount, is documented in Riddell’s diary where he writes that McDonald was testing lime quarries in April of 1865, suggesting that McDonald had been testing lime from this outcrop prior to any settlement in the area. The testing of the limestone is believed to have been conducted in a small half lime kiln that was situated somewhere near Highcliff Road. The following month Riddell was helping McDonald ‘carry lime up from [the] kiln.’
The upper Sandymount lime kiln (I44/83)
Section 5 was owned by Walter Riddell who leased land to McDonald between 1868-1870. In 1909 part of section 5 was leased to the Taieri and Peninsula Milk Supply Company Ltd, together with the water use right over a spring on the property. It is likely that the upper kiln was constructed by William Dick (1837-1921), a local farmer and stonemason who is recorded as building the middle kiln. Knight describes this kiln as a two-section structure that had a 2 ft (60 cm) rail running from the mouth of the kiln to the stone foundations of a loading shed (presumably this was at the base). The top of the kiln was level with the quarry and a 2 ft (60 cm) rail track led to a loading platform. The kiln was the first to be built and operated until 1889 and was started up again 16 years later by Riddell. Cornelius Flint collected reminiscences from the community in the late 1970s and notes quarters for a workman were built into the structure for workmen who kept the fire burning (a small fireplace is observable in the eastern wall) and that the kiln was relined in the late 1920s.
‘It used to be quite a happening when the kiln was going to be lit. Everybody cut their hedges and thinned their trees out and the clippings were picked up by the kiln staff with horses and drays and put in the bottom of the kiln … it put out a most peculiar sour smell which could be recognised at a considerable distance.’
‘After each draw off the kiln was “Topped Up” again and it was kept going, sometimes for months and months, keeping three men working full time and resulting in approximately two tons of lime per day.’
The quarry was located behind the kiln which was across the road from Sandymount School (I44/446) and when blasting was planned the school was alerted to keep everyone inside. Flint notes, ‘In all the operations there was never a window broken, but some sheets of roofing iron had to be replaced at various times because a rock went through it, but nobody was ever hurt.’ Later, when quarrying was mechanised, a crusher was built and a truck was used to transport the limestone to the kiln which was lowered by 2 feet (60 cm) so it could dump the limestone directly into it. ‘The burnt lime was taken by dray up to the junction of Sandymount and the Highcliff Road. There was a large shed there, and it also housed a crusher’. The principal agent was Milburn Lime and Cement however lime was also sold to individuals to make paths, build walls. ‘When the crushing shed was full, the lime-burning stopped and the inferior limestone was crushed and then was used for maintain the roads about the area. Highcliff Road was done in one major operation to a depth of about 8”.’ In 1937 his tender for metalling the Highcliff Road was accepted for £141 ($17, 021). John Riddell (son of Walter) worked the lime kiln until 1938 under the name Riddell’s Hydraulic Lime Co. Ltd. The land remained in the Riddell family for some generations until it was subdivided in 1992.
The middle Sandymount lime kiln (I44/84)
In 1870 James McDonald purchased a section of waste land for £161 ($24, 703), money which he loaned from James Jones of Bristol, England where the middle kiln (I44/84) was built. McDonald likely purchased this land for the purpose of constructing a lime kiln close to the source. Knight reports that this kiln was constructed using tuff by William Dick around 1870-1872. Knight describes the kiln as being built from tuff, ‘A monumental construction this kiln was later described as ‘an outstanding example of the stonemason’s craft’. Knight describes this kiln as
‘massive and castle-like in appearance’. It measures 50 ft (15.2 m) x 28 ft (8.5 m) at the base and. The lower part is 27 ft (8.2 m) high on top of which is the kiln itself, another 23 ft (7 m) tapering from 17 ft (5.1 m) at the base to 14 ft (4.2 m) at the top, where there is a parapet and a bridge … to the quarry face for loading the limestone.’
This kiln was worked in a different method, only utilising wood for fuel and was heated by four furnaces ‘two big and two small ones. They are opposite each other in a big circle.’
A newspaper article from 1870 provides detail of the workings of what is likely to be the middle Sandymount lime kiln and offers remarks from McDonald himself on how the kiln operated along with information about the limestone they were quarrying. The author described ‘a beautiful wooded gorge leading up to the lime kilns’ and acknowledges the clearance of the land with the, ‘bush fast disappearing’ in preference for grazing. He observed the burning process and was provided a tour of the operations by McDonald. Stone was being quarried by blasting and the stone which was a ‘hard, dense and a greyish blue colour’, was broken into pieces with hammers. The kiln was described as 30 ft high (9.1 m) by 7 ft in diameter (2.1 m) built of limestone and lined with firebricks and able to turn out at least 150 bags a day.
In 1887, McDonald constructed a cement manufacturing plant at Walton Park in Dunedin, which was the first company in New Zealand to produce Portland Cement. The lime used to produce Portland Cement at the new plant, was taken from McDonald’s kilns at Milton and a hydraulic lime was sourced from the Otago Peninsula. Land title information indicates that the section 54 was owned by James McDonald in the 1870s and 1880s until he had financial trouble and the title was assigned to the Milburn Lime Company as official assignee in October 1888. Knight reports the kiln was not particularly successful and that the quarry did not produce stone of the quality that the upper kiln did. However, the Milburn Lime Company made repairs to the fireplaces and the eyes (collecting ports) and strengthened the charging bowl with iron bands.
Title was issued for section 54 Block III Otago Peninsula District to The Milburn Lime and Cement Company Limited in December 1935. In 1976 New Zealand Cement Holdings gifted the lime kiln, together with the adjacent limestone quarry to the Otago Peninsula Trust. Restoration work in the late 1970s was supported by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. The Dunedin City Council was also keen to encourage interpretation and public access to these significant historic sites. An article in the Evening Post described the ambitious plans for the site which included reconstructing the footbridge from the quarry to the top of the kiln where the charge was loaded, reroofing the cart shed and rebuilding the flooring the loading platform amongst other works to make the site safe and accessible to visitors.
The bottom Sandymount lime kiln (I44/85)
This kiln, which is the smallest of the three kilns, was operated by the Robertson brothers that lived nearby at Sandfly. William Robertson (1812- 1902) who arrived on the Silestra in 1860 settled at Sandfly on the Peninsula. He was a skilled stonemason and specialist in the macadam process of road surfacing but turned to lime burning, farming and flax milling. Knight notes that the lime burning was a successful business and was conducted under the Colonial Public Works scheme. His sons John and William Jnr also went into the business.
The kiln was constructed on the land of Robert Stewart (1836-1913) and exploited the same limestone outcrop as the two upper kilns. It is believed the kiln was fuelled by wood, with many of the roads made by the Robertson’s to gather wood still observable today. Unburnt coal is found in the tailings of (I44/85). It is of note, that Stewart named his farm Glenmore and there is historical reference to Glenmore Lime Kilns Peninsula, where the Robertson brothers who were producing ‘…the finest quality lime in Otago in any quantity’ in 1873. This suggests the Robertson’s were operating the bottom kiln by at least 1873, and that there was possibly more than one kiln on Stewart’s Glenmore Farm. A painting by Arthur Albert Bender titled, Glenmore Kilns, may provide more information if discovered.
There is a presumption by ‘expert lime burners’ that this was the last of the three kilns to be built, based on the way the hydraulic producing seam of limestone was outcropping at approximately a 45° dipping angle. The interpretation by these people, is that the top kiln was built first followed by the middle kiln and finally the bottom kiln. It is uncertain how they came to this conclusion, but from an economical perspective, the overburden or unwanted material may have been expensive to remove if quarrying from the bottom of the outcrop to the top. Another issue may have been the uncertainty of whether the hydraulic producing seam continued to the bottom of the outcrop, which became more evident as the overburden from the top of the outcrop was removed.
I44/447 Limestone Crushing Plant
While a date of construction is uncertain, the plant was owned by Walter Riddell’s son John who lived opposite the works in the Post Office house (I44/414). The shed was built here as it was one of the only flat pieces of land in the vicinity of the kilns. John burnt lime (also referred to as shell lime) from the quarry at the top kiln (I44/83) above Sandymount Road to be crushed at the plant. It was then carted to Pelichet Bay cement works. Cornelius Flint recorded that “when coal was required [for the top kiln], James Garr using an eight-horse team, took a load of lime to town and returned laden with coal from the Dunedin railyard.” This was Kaitangata coal supplied by Bruce Coal Co. Ltd. The crushing plant consisted of a large, corrugated iron shed with workshops and a hopper. Water on site provided for a steam engine and boiler. Flint records the workings of the plant:
“The shell-lime was taken to an unloading ramp on the Highcliff roadside of the shed; it then passed into a rotary crusher which ground it to about a quarter inch. It was then taken up by elevator into a bin on the side, from where it went by chute to a mill which ground it to a real powder. It was again elevated up to the two rotary sieves to remove any lumps of unburned lime … a large fan which blew the lime off … dropped to the ground. When there was a large enough heap, water was sprayed on the lime every 20 mins. Using a head with a ‘rose’ on it to cool it. This was all the slaking don to the lime here. It was then bagged.”
The engine was powered by Riddell’s Hydraulic Lime Company which was liquidated in 1939. When operations ceased the equipment was sold to the coal quarry at Blackhead. The limestone crushing factory was demolished in 1974.
